Minisink Valley falls to Arlington in state baseball quarterfinals

FISHKILL — In the bottom of the sixth inning of Tuesday's Class AA state quarterfinal against Arlington, Minisink Valley's Chris Davignon hit ...

WILLIAM MONTGOMERY

FISHKILL — In the bottom of the sixth inning of Tuesday's Class AA state quarterfinal against Arlington, Minisink Valley's Chris Davignon hit a ball down the left-field line that pushed two runs across the plate, slashing the Warriors' deficit to three.

Josh Rivera flied to left and Davignon tagged and scored, but Arlington appealed to the third-base umpire, who ruled that Davignon had left early.

In the top of the seventh, Arlington scored four runs to pull away for a 10-3 victory at Dutchess Stadium.

Arlington (20-5), the Section 1 champion, will play on Saturday in the state semifinals at Binghamton University.

For Minisink Valley head coach Dave Benedetto, the turning point of the game was the double play call in the sixth inning. Had Davignon scored, it would have been a 6-4 Arlington lead with two out and a Minisink Valley runner on first.

“Sometimes the umpires help you. Sometimes they hurt you,” Benedetto said. “That particular call hurt us. I felt as though we had some momentum that inning and some good things were happening.”

“I saw it go up and coach said I needed to tag up, so I went back,” said Davignon, a freshman center fielder. “Sometimes you get it wrong, sometimes you get it right. I'm not sure if it was wrong or not, but we stayed up and we tried to battle back. It just wasn't our day.”

Arlington starting pitcher Joe DeRosa was efficient over his first five innings. He allowed a leadoff single to Davignon in the first and gave up one run on Josh Rivera's RBI infield single.

Over the next four innings, DeRosa faced the minimum 12 batters. He recorded his 15th out on pitch No. 45.

“I think we were just jumping out too much,” said Minisink Valley starting pitcher and No. 2 hitter Josh Walker. “We weren't being patient like we usually are. It's one of the reasons we lost the game.”

DeRosa pitched six innings and earned the win. He allowed four hits, walked one and did not strike out a single batter.

DeRosa "was attacking the zone,” said Benedetto. “We were making good contact, we were just hitting it directly at their infield and outfield.”

Danny Lowndes' two-run single in the second inning gave the Admirals an early 3-1 lead. In the seventh against Rivera, who had entered in relief of Walker, Arlington scored one run on a throwing error and three more on wild pitches.

Walker allowed six runs, four of which were earned, over 5 1/3 innings of work.

Minisink Valley finished the season with a 15-10 record. The Warriors were 3-6 through their first nine games, but rallied to clinch the No. 7 seed in a seven-team field in the Section 9 Class AA playoffs.

After knocking off the top three seeds in Section 9, Minisink Valley won its first state playoff game in program history on Monday against Union-Endicott.

“It's been a lot of fun,” Davignon said. “We got to our goal that we wanted to get to, which was a section championship. These guys here have been great. Coach has been good helping me through it as the young guy on the team. Hopefully we can get another one next year and the years after that.”

A few of the Minisink Valley players will be moving on to college baseball, including Walker, who's set to pitch for the University of South Florida.

No matter where he goes from here, Walker knows he'll never forget the ride that was the last few weeks.

“At the moment, it hurts a little bit, but down the road we're going to remember this,” Walker said. “We're going to be proud of what we did.”